The Dragon by Komodo Chess engine has been a favorite among chess players around the world for many years. It is one of the best and most comprehensive and developed chess engines.
Today, news broke that Chess.com has purchased the rights to use the software and bought the entire Komodo Chess company. As a result of this transaction, Chess.com acquired all rights to use and further develop the Dragon engine.
What does this mean for the future of the Dragon engine?
Toy... Does the mighty Dragon become that?
Certainly, Chess.com has enough financial resources to enable further development of the Dragon chess engine. At the same time, one wonders if Chess.com will use the engine to create more bots like Mittens – serving only for fun and not for more serious applications.
As Larry Kaufman, one of the Dragon engine's Creators, emphasized*, one of Chess.com's goals is for Dragon to become the best chess engine in the world.
Further development may therefore include improving algorithms, training neural networks, improving strategies, or finally – using artificial intelligence.
In my opinion, the future ahead of the Dragon engine seems to be a bit uncertain but at the same time full of possibilities, despite the challenges that developers face. Of course, it is difficult to predict exactly what the next steps in the development of the engine will be, but it is certainly worth following its further development to see will be introduced in the future.
It is worth noting that the Dragon chess engine is a tool for Chess.com to use in order to develop its chess platform. As the owner of this engine, Chess.com will strive to make the best use of it and hopefully also to develop and improve it.
Dragon by Komodo Chess is a commercial engine, but for many years subsequent versions have been made available for free.
And just today, Komodo Chess Engine 14.1 was made available to the chess community. Linux, Mac and Windows versions are available.
I encourage you to download Komodo 14.1 from the developer's website.
In the Files area you will find free chess engines for download.
* Source: TalkChess.com